Bloomberg to Spend $50 Million to Create Anti-Gun Organization to Compete With NRA

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Bloomberg is at it again. According to a New York Times report, the former mayor of New York and anti-gun billionaire Michael Bloomberg is going to attempt to use money to force the gun control issue to go his way.

Bloomberg will spend $50 million as an initial investment to form a “grassroots” (I don’t think he knows what that word means) network of anti-gun citizens across the country.

It seems that Bloomberg’s current anti-gun groups, Moms Demand Action and Mayors Against Illegal Guns, will operate under this new umbrella.

What Bloomberg doesn’t get is that you can’t buy grassroots activism. People get involved in causes they are passionate about, not because some New York billionaire writes a bigger check. According to the NY Times,

Mr. Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York, said gun control advocates need to learn from the N.R.A. and punish those politicians who fail to support their agenda — even Democrats whose positions otherwise align with his own.

“They say, ‘We don’t care. We’re going to go after you,’ ” he said of the N.R.A. “ ‘If you don’t vote with us we’re going to go after your kids and your grandkids and your great-grandkids. And we’re never going to stop.’ ”

He added: “We’ve got to make them afraid of us.”

The considerable advantages that gun rights advocates enjoy — in intensity, organization and political clout — will not be easy to overcome. Indeed, Mr. Bloomberg has already spent millions of dollars trying to persuade members of Congress to support enhanced background check laws with virtually nothing to show for it.

There have been well funded anti-gun groups before and the real issue is this – supporters of the Second Amendment vote on that issue, actually show up to vote, and are willing to donate money to pro-gun organizations and candidates. While there are a few anti-gun people with that kind of passion, most of the time the anti-gunners won’t go further than signing an online petition or sharing something on social media.

That said, $50 million is a lot of money and we need to keep an eye on the actions of this new group.